Updated to include their plan to fly to San Francisco and acquire a second Boeing 787.
MIAT Mongolian Airlines has a brand new Boeing 787-9 and wants to fly it to the United States.
The state carrier, which traces to 1956 and a partnership with Aeroflot, has been submitting the necessary paperwork to U.S. regulators and meeting with government officials in order to get the permission. This is about geopolitics, not passengers.
This week MIAT submitted one of the necessary documents to the DOT for U.S. flights: https://t.co/0dY73XYirp
Mongolia and the U.S. DOT/FAA met last month, both intending to finalize a bilateral agreement needed before MIAT can begin regular passenger flights to the U.S.
— Ishrion Aviation (@IshrionA) February 8, 2023
We now know that their plan is to serve San Francisco, once Mongolia’s safety regulation is able to obtain the necessary certifications from the FAA.
NEW: MIAT Mongolian Airlines plans to launch flights from Ulaanbaatar (UBN) to San Francisco.
MIAT will also acquire a second Boeing 787 in the first quarter of 2024.
Mongolia will first need to receive a Category 1 rating from the FAA before MIAT can launch U.S. flights. pic.twitter.com/iaNHRNaJmz
— Ishrion Aviation (@IshrionA) February 16, 2023
They would also acquire a second Boeing 787, and seek a codeshare partner. They can’t fly to the U.S. without a category 1 safety rating for their home country, and U.S. airlines cannot add codeshares onto their flights, but they can place their code onto other airline flights – and wish to do this for flights to Seattle, San Francisco, Denver, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Washington, D.C.
Now, is there a market to support non-stop flights between the U.S. and Mongolia? Uh, no.
To be sure, China service is starting to return, though demand will remain limited compared to pre-pandemic (and pre-pandemic some China flights were big money-losers).
..” then in early April go daily
— 🇺🇦 JonNYC 🇺🇦 (@xJonNYC) February 9, 2023
However Ulaanbaatar is neither Beijing nor Shanghai. In fact there’s a reason that MIAT Mongolian Airlines has only 6 passenger planes, including that Boeing 787, and four of them are Boeing 737s.
There has only been a single non-stop flight between the U.S. and Mongolia, ever. That was a MIAT flight, operated by its Boeing 767 to Seattle and carrying only cargo – personal protective equipment donated to the U.S. early in Covid.
A 6000 mile flight to the West Coast would presumably be for prestige, and to make Mongolia more focal to potential American tourists. More importantly, Mongolia is bordered by Russia and China. It’s a democracy and the United States is a key strategic partner. Mongolia has gone so far as to deploy troops to Iraq and to Afghanistan when the U.S. has called (they were on the ground in Afghanistan for 18 years). It is no surprise that the state-owned airline’s small fleet is all-Boeing.
As a state-owned carrier, its interests aren’t strictly in earning a profit on air service. As an airline this route seems absolutely nuts. Instead it should be viewed largely from a geopolitical standpoint, enhancing Mongolia’s relations with the United States by making the two countries more connected.
Gonna be even more difficult if it can’t fly over Russian-airspace.
Interesting destination.
My question is, would you feel comfortable flying this airline or will it be another PIA? I have no insight into that but without much history to base opinions on, I think it’s a fair question.
I’d love to go if it were considered safe.
Woofie, you wouldn’t feel safe in a 787?
First flight on MIAT was in 2001 on a 727 from ICN to ULN.
Considering they put a lot of their sons in harms way on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq that shows a lot of loyalty. Don’t know what the dispute is here. It’s not like some of these other countries who sacrificed nothing but take our foreign aid and send us all their illegals across our boarders.
Daniel has a point, seems doubtful you’re going to overfly Russia as the map in the article suggests. Ditto trying to cut across near Vladivostok (the Ruskies seem overly sensitive about that area). LAX-ICN (Seoul, South Korea) is around 5300 nautical miles and ICN to Ulaanbaatar appears to be no more than 1000 nautical miles. Given that the 787 has a range of 8400 nautical miles, this suggests that you could overfly Seoul and then head North-West to Ulaanbaatar (overflying just South Korea and China). Seems reasonable to me, but then I’m not flying that aircraft. The pilots that follow this blog may have a better idea.
I had a great flight from Chicago over the North Pole to Beijing. It was amazing watching the ice cap and then flipping day and night when we changed hemispheres. But that was 10 years ago when things were….much better. MIAT might have better luck with the Russians if they left from Vancouver. Everything I’ve heard about Mongolia (except the bad pollution in Ulaanbaatar) has been positive and I’d go in a heartbeat. I hope they can work this out.
Spent 5 days in Mongolia in 2019. Lovely. Drove around, had a great time, would recommend.
LAX would make sense as a gateway to Asia; however, demand speaking, Chicago has the largest Mongolian expat population in the United States. United and MIAT already have a partnership, as pre-pandemic you’d often fly United to Beijing then MIAT on the same ticket, so MIAT serving ORD isn’t out of the question.
I’d be interested in flying them more if they were an alliance member!
Definitely a market for travel to Mongolia. Very in-trend tourist destination for the been there done that crowd. Also, the US is trying to strengthen relations with Mongolia–the Peace Corps is recruiting for representatives to go in and work with the Mongolians, help them set up English language programs and micro-loan businesses.
this is pretty cool. I lived in Mongolia for three years at government expense. There is a well-organized adventure tourism industry. And the country is huge and untouched. Accommodation in the countryside is usually in a yurt camp. Touring with any level of comfort is pretty expensive with a local. Backpacking is permitted, but English is not widely spoken nor Russian for that matter. There are lost worlds to see. But Mongolian is one of the hardest languages in the world to learn. Stick to summer travel, however. In winter night time temperatures in the capital can drop to minus 40°. That’s the temperature at which Fahrenheit and Centigrade overlap. Cold AF. Not to mention the air pollution from the locals who burn soft coal to stay warm. Call me crazy but I miss the place sometimes.
Mongolia is on my list to visit so I’m hoping this comes about. Would simplify air travel from NC (our home airport is Raleigh-Durham). Otherwise, I might fly from RDU to IAD to use Turkish Airlines to Istanbul and then on to UBN. Non-stop to LAX from RDU and then non-stop to UBN from LAX would be great!
Seems like if Mongolia becomes close enough to the US, they could become another Tibet.
Mongolian airline is very very safe. I took their flights from Tokyo, Beijing, Seoul,Istanbul, & Frankfurt. Superb flying skill, smoothest landing. I would be very happy if they flew to US. Too bad their destination is not to Washington DC.
I know quite a number of people who have gone to Mongolia for leisure purposes, usually rather expensive guided trips that presumably injected quite a bit of foreign capital into the domestic economy. Not sure where Gary derives his hand-waving definitive statement that there is no market (I guess “thought leaders” are absolved of the need to make data-driven claims?).
But forget anecdotes; let’s play with some actual numbers:
*World Bank states 637,000 tourist arrivals to Mongolia in 2019, last full pre-COVID year (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/ST.INT.ARVL?locations=MN)
*Assume 300 seats on the 789
*Assume 3x / week frequency – fairly standard for these types of flights
*So, 300 * 3 * 50 = 45,000 seats / year
*Assume load factor of 66-75% – so about 30-34k filled seats per year
So that “case math” suggests that only perhaps 5% of total pre-COVID Mongolian tourist volume would have to go through this route for it to be viable. Seems perfectly reasonable to me.
I live in Berlin and pre-pandemic there was a direct flight from Mongolia to Tegel.
Always thought it was an interesting route. Cold war throwback perhaps?
The one or two times I’ve seen a MIAT bag tag whilst on public transport it’s been a minor thrill (yea I live large out here)
Mongolia is beautiful.
I am naturalized US, origin Croatia while even deeper, ……. Mongolian.
2016 Newark-Beijing-Ulan Bator.
Intrepid travel, September and was already cooler. Attention. It is quite high, more elevated then Denver. 2 times bigger then Texas, 4 million people. Was on 2 volcanoes, Uran Togo, Khorgo. Lake Khovgsol, the spa Tsenher (90 C, 175 F). Did not go west (Altai, Flaming Clifs) nor east (Inner Mongolia), Nadan the festiva. Google, You tube it all.
The lady (Nanatsetseg) with whom I ended to get to UB, offered met the number if something happen. But previously said to her that she just like my aunt. Panonian step, of the central Europe.
Winters, extreme
Mongolia is awesome. Good for them
They ll probably time it to connect to China to fill the planes with cheap tickets to China.
We will head to Mongolia this October via NRT for nine nights. We are deciding between Goyo Travel or BlueWolf Travel as a tour guide. BlueWolf offers more authentic outdoor wilderness experiences and lower costs. It also covers Khustain and Tererlj National Parks, Altain Mountains, eagle training and nomadic life with a local family. No Gobi desert.
It is ironic that we continue to read people ask about safety before deciding to visit a foreign country. It shows the vast majority of Americans are still highly ignorant about the world affairs, cultures and geography, despite easy access to internet for self education. We live in the most violent country country in the world in absence of civil war. Hmmm. I guess it is acceptable to kill your fellow Americans but all hell breaks lose if non-Americans kill us.
Fly those 787s from UBN to overfly Saporro (thus avoiding any Russian airspace), then head to any North American west coast city. If I can book with points, I’d jump on it yesterday.
Mongolia looks awesome and I’ve always wanted to go. Bring it!
That is funny… You can’t have a direct flight to Puerto Rico, a US Territory, but we can do a direct flight to Mongolia? Whatever!!!!
Question for those speculating that they wouldn’t overfly Russia. Why wouldn’t they?
Cathay Pacific is overflying Russia on flights from JFK to HKG and Qatar and Emirates are overflying Russia on many of their flights to/from the US.
While I don’t see it actually making money, I could see it losing a lot less than you might expect. Mongolia is a tremendous destination for tourists with any sense of adventure and the outdoors,; and being visa free for Americans, has none of the hassles of a visit to, say, Russia or China. No it’s not ready yet for mass tourism or for the luxury “I need to be pampered” guests, but there’s lots of room for growth. And it’s not for nothing that the nation has the nickname “Minegolia. The mining industry has exploded and there will be business travel on the route. I think the carrier does need some sort of agreement with US and/or Canadian airlines to link up with the flight out of the U.S.
The geopolitical motives remain central of course. If I’m a militaryily weak surrounded by Russia and China, I want the best relations I can get with other countries.
It’s a beautiful country with a vibrant democracy. Wonderful to visit, much to see and do. Thoroughly enjoyed every day of our visit 26 years ago. Americans definitely want to support an independent country sandwiched between two dictatorships, and a nonstop flight on a 787 is much easier than going via Beijing or Seoul.
If you think there isn’t a market for travel to Mongolia, you know absolutely nothing about culture and geopolitics. There are thousands of Mongolian nationals and people associated with Mongolia (myself included) that travel to Mongolia frequently. Not to mention its location as a hotspot for adventure tourism. They would ALL book a nonstop flight.